


The Fine Print

by pendrecarc



Category: Gunnerkrigg Court
Genre: Assumes things have returned more-or-less to normal after the current story arc, F/M, Future Fic, Ritual marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-12 22:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21233486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/pseuds/pendrecarc
Summary: Antimony's position as medium turns out to have a catch. She is, as they say, shocked but not surprised.





	The Fine Print

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neosaiyanangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neosaiyanangel/gifts).

“Fire head girl! You have brought your friend at last!”

“Yes,” said Antimony, doing her best to hide a smile at Kat’s wide-eyed stare while Coyote twined around her, his elongated snout coming to rest on her shoulder. Antimony _had_ warned her. “Her parents agreed to let me, since things have been so quiet the last few months.”

Kat’s head jerked in Antimony’s direction, the rest of her held perfectly still. Coyote’s tongue was lolling out of his mouth. She probably didn’t want to risk touching it. “Annie,” Kat hissed, “you know better than to say that. It’s just tempting fate.”

Antimony settled crosslegged on the forest floor, leaning back against a warm and solid tree trunk. Her hands curled through a carpet of moss and fallen leaves. “That’s not very scientific of you.”

“Well,” Kat said, looking sideways at Coyote, whose eyes rolled to meet hers. “It’s a little harder to feel scientific out here.”

And that was why Antimony loved it, though she’d never tell Kat in so many words. It felt easier to breathe out here, where everything made the kind of sense that didn’t. Her mind could slip into the ether without any effort, and she could see flame running along the length of her hair and Coyote’s fur rippling in the current of the stars.

Back in the physical world, Coyote was growing impatient. “Enough of that, fire head girl’s friend. She’s brought you here to tell me wonderful things.”

“What—kind of wonderful things?”

He’d stretched his neck and forelegs over Kat’s shoulder until they rested on the ground, and now his hind legs sprang forward to join them. Kat let out a yelp, and Coyote threw his head into the air. “Stories, of course! All the stories you have heard about _me_.”

Antimony couldn’t help laughing at Kat’s expression, but she also gave an encouraging wave of her hand. Kat stuttered a bit, and then in desperation she launched into a highly revisionist description of their visit to the Realm of the Dead, in which Coyote figured in ways Antimony had trouble following but which seemed to make Coyote perfectly happy. Antimony rested her head on the tree trunk and closed her eyes, letting their voices mingle with the sounds of the forest as they washed over her. The forest wasn’t home, not really—she’d told Coyote and Ysengrin that a hundred times, when they seemed to be getting too complacent about her visits. But sometimes she thought it was the only place she felt _at_ home.

She was broken out of these thoughts by the sound of her own name. Kat had brought the story to some kind of conclusion, though presumably not a very accurate one, and now she was answering Coyote’s questions about how Antimony spent her days at Court.

“And—classes and things,” she was saying, a bit vaguely. “Oh, and the other year I thought she was going to start dating Winsbury, but she turned him down. Winsbury is—”

“But of course she did,” Coyote interrupted, just as Antimony’s eyes flew open in indignation. Why Kat had to tell him _that_\-- “She knew such a courtship could only end in tears.”

“Well, Winsbury wouldn’t be my choice, I suppose, but he’s actually really nice once you—”

Coyote erupted into laughter. “Nice? It doesn’t matter how nice he is, friend of the fire head girl. She is already promised to another.”

Kat blinked, then looked at Antimony, who could only shrug. “Er. To who?”

“Why, to me, of course,” said Coyote.

Antimony’s mouth dropped open. She and Kat stared at one another in mute confusion.

Coyote went on, oblivious or pretending to be, as he stretched himself slowly backwards until his spine was extended like an all-powerful slinky. “It was a condition of the offer to become my medium, and she agreed.”

“I did _not_!” Antimony’s tongue was suddenly loose, but all she could do was babble. “I didn’t agree to anything of the kind. You never _said_—”

Coyote paused, then snapped back to his usual size so quickly Antimony's head began to spin. Though maybe that was just from the conversation. “Oh. You’re right! I _FORGOT_.”

*******

Much later, sitting down to dinner at the Donlans’, Antimony still had no idea what to say.

“Coyote does seem to be correct,” Mr. Donlan said. “Or at least, what he says is supported by the Court’s records. By tradition, his medium—the forest’s medium—must be kin in some way. In the past it has always been by blood, as with Ysengrin, or by marriage.”

“Why didn’t anyone think to check the records earlier?” Mrs. Donlan demanded. “It should have been done immediately, before Antimony gave an answer in the first place.”

“It’s not like I gave anyone the chance,” Antimony muttered, embarrassed. “I was so angry. I said ‘yes’ without really thinking.”

“Well, it’s still your choice,” said Mrs. Donlan, firm and reassuring. “You can leave the job if he won’t let you continue without marrying him.”

“Yes,” Antimony said, “but I don’t want to leave the job.” She prodded her dinner with a fork. It was a hearty, steaming slice of lasagna—her favorite whenever she came over here—and as she poked it, the top layer slid off onto the plate. She sighed. “It’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

“Do you—do you _want_ to marry him?” asked Kat, eyes as round as Antimony had ever seen them.

Antimony opened her mouth to say ‘no’. Then she thought about it. “I—I don’t know. It’s not like I want to marry anyone else.”

“It’s out of the question,” said Mrs. Donlan, though she no longer sounded so certain of herself. Then she brightened. “Your father will never allow it.”

Mr. Donlan took off his glasses and began to clean them on a corner of his napkin. “Actually—”

“Donald?”

He sighed. “Actually, I talked to Tony about it earlier, and he’s not entirely opposed to the idea.”

There was dead silence around the table. “Why not?” asked Antimony, very quietly and very clearly.

“Because of what happened to your mother.” Mr. Donlan had turned a little red. “He pointed out it was—unlikely you would ever have children with Coyote. And if you ever did, Coyote might be better equipped to save you than Tony was to save your mother.”

After a very long and awkward minute, Antimony set her fork back down. “Thank you for dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Donlan,” she said. “I’m sorry I don’t have much of an appetite. Please excuse me.” She smiled at Kat, who was looking extremely concerned. “Good night, Kat. See you tomorrow?”

Reynardine padded along beside her on the way home. Antimony reached over and buried her fingers in the soft, thick fur at the back of his neck. “You’re being unusually quiet about all this.”

“I haven’t been given permission to speak.”

“You mean you’re sulking.”

He sniffed. It came out as a very doggy huff, but she knew better than to make that comparison out loud. “I don’t suppose my opinion would be welcome.” Antimony rolled her eyes and waited. It only took him to the end of the hallway to give up on the silent treatment. “It’s a terrible idea.”

“Why?”

“Why? Do you need me to tell you, or are you really that foolish?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Antimony asked. She wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to convince. “I meant it, you know—I don’t think I want to marry anyone else. And if it means I can keep working as his medium, it might be worth it.” Reynardine’s head slid out from under her hand. She stopped and turned around to see him standing stock-still in the hall, all his fur bristling. “Well, why _is_ it such a terrible idea? Has Coyote ever been married before? Other than to the goose wife. I don’t think she counts.”

“Yes,” said Reynardine. “Several times that I know of.”

“And was it so terrible for them?”

“Let me think,” said Reynardine, his teeth bared. “There was his first wife, the coyote wife. She helped him with many of his early creations. And then they argued, and he convinced all their descendants it was her fault, and they all refused to speak to her for a hundred years.”

“That’s not a problem, or weren’t you listening? I won’t have any children.”

“And then there was his second wife, the star wife. She was his first medium, and she helped him to organize all the constellations. Then when he lost interest partway through, she got so angry with him that she kicked the earth hard enough to tilt it on its axis, and then she ran off to the far end of the Milky Way.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Antimony said, reflecting. “It was her decision to leave him, after all. And I don’t think I can kick anything that hard.”

“And then there was his third wife, the tree wife. She was so quiet she never stood up to him, and she lived hundreds of years in silence, and came to old age without answering more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to almost anything he said.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem for me,” said Antimony. By that time they had made it back to her room, and she paused to unlock the door. “Or don’t you think I can handle Coyote?”

“You became his medium just to spite the Court. Are you really going to become his wife just because we all tell you you shouldn’t?” Before Antimony could protest that wasn’t the _only_ reason she’d agreed to be the forest’s medium, Renard tilted his head to look up at her, and then he sighed. “I suppose if anyone can handle him, it’s you,” he said gloomily, and slid lithely through the door without another word.

*******

But really, other than her own, there was only one person whose opinion on the subject really mattered.

“I have three conditions,” she said early the next morning, holding up her hand. Coyote sat back expectantly on his hind legs and raised one paw in mirror of her. Glancing at it and finding the wrong number of toes, he shifted until all but three toes had disappeared entirely, and those stood out as long as each of her fingers. “One.” He waggled the first toe expectantly. “We’ll wait for the wedding until I’ve finished school.”

He squirmed in place. “Oh, Coyote can be patient! You don’t believe it, but I _can_.” The first toe shrank, and shrank, and then was swallowed up into the rest of his paw.

“All right,” she said severely. “Two—even after we’re married, I can come and go as I please. I’ll be your wife, but the forest won’t be my home unless I choose to make it mine.”

“When you are my wife, you’ll never want to leave!”

“I’ll decide that. Do I have your promise?”

“Yes, yes.” The second toe went the same way as the first.

“And, finally—” Antimony hesitated. “You have to tell me why you want to marry me.”

“It is a condition of my offer—”

“Yes, that’s why you said I had to marry you, but it’s not why you want to. I don’t believe for a minute you _need_ me to be kin if I’m going to work as your medium. You could change that rule if you really wanted to. So why don’t you want to?”

Coyote stared at his third and last toe until his eyes began to cross, and then suddenly his whole face scrunched up as though he was preparing for an extremely violent sneeze. Antimony tensed, ready to be blown over backwards, but what actually came out was a warm, steady puff of air. It blew her hair out of its elastic and over her shoulders, and then—like a breath over a live coal—it blew her hair right into flame, until the bright heat rippled around her.

“Because, fire head girl,” he said, his voice changing so it was deeper, and somehow sounded both more human and less at the same time, and so Antimony shivered even as she was bathed in fire. “The flame in you calls to me, and I think you want me to answer it.”

And so, on the first day of summer after her last year as a student at the Court, Antimony put on her best uniform. It wasn’t the most romantic wedding dress imaginable, but it felt right. She wore her mother’s necklace and let her hair fall down to the small of her back. Smitty followed at her right hand and Kat and Renard at her left, with Jones walking silently along behind them. She’d been planning to ask her father to join them, but he was absent on Court business, and all things considered she thought it might be for the best.

Coyote was waiting in the clearing where he’d first—well, Antimony couldn’t really call it _proposed_, could she? Ysengrin was waiting under the trees, nearly out of sight, but Antimony would recognize those glowing eyes anywhere. She smiled at him, and he nodded a little. He’d offered to come carry her this last time before she was married, but she’d wanted to walk here under her own power.

“Remember,” she said quietly to Kat and Smitty, “you probably won’t be able to see much. The ceremony takes place almost entirely in the ether.”

“I know,” said Kat, looking a little pale, almost like it was her own wedding. “But how will we know when to step back out of the circle?”

Coyote let out a yip of amusement. “Oh, you’ll know, friend of the fire head girl!”

“Antimony,” said Antimony firmly. He frowned at her so deeply his jaw sagged down to the ground. “That’s my name, and I want you to use it, at least for this.”

“Very well, _Antimony_.” It sounded like a laugh. “And just for this ceremony, you must call me ——” She was very sure she couldn’t reproduce what he said then. She heard it in the ether as much as in her ears. Renard snorted, which made her wonder if it was really Coyote's name at all, or just another way of laughing at her. But it didn’t really matter.

Ysengrin stepped forward, into the light. “Are we ready?”

“Yes,” said Antimony. If she had to gulp a bit before she could manage it, well, nobody had to know.

“Then let us begin.” Ysengrin extended one of his paws, and the red and blue began to leak from Coyote’s paws as he paced around and around them, Kat and Renard and Smitty pulling in tight beside Antimony within the brightly-colored circle he made. Jones watched from the periphery, and Ysengrin said with a rumble, “Who brings this girl to the forest?”

“I bring myself,” Antimony said promptly.

This wasn’t quite in the script. Coyote began to grin.

“But my friends come with me,” Antimony hurried to add.

Ysengrin closed his eyes for a moment, as though his patience was being sorely tried. “And why have you come here?”

“To be married.”

“And who comes to marry her?”

“_I_ do,” said Coyote, stopping his pacing very abruptly. He sat back on his heels, paws extended. Hesitating only a little, Antimony reached for them.

And burst into flames.

Kat yelped, Smitty let out something that could accurately be described as a scream, and both of them went tumbling with Renard out of the circle and toward the edge of the clearing. Antimony winced. She probably should have expected that. She caught hard onto both Coyote’s paws and let herself slide sideways into the ether, where she felt her hands grasped just as hard by hands that—almost—felt human, and looked up into a grin that spanned the whole width of the sky. “Now,” said Ysengrin, his voice a beautiful low rumble in her ear, “tell her what she is.”

“You are my wife, Antimony,” said Coyote like the babble of a brook, or like a high storm wind in the trees. She felt his paws slip away. One rested at her waist, a solid weight; the other tilted her chin up toward him.

“Now tell him what he is.”

“You’re my husband, Coyote,” she said, with the best approximation she could manage of the name he had asked her to use—and his eyes widened in surprise and delight when she took his face firmly in both of her hands. “And you had better remember it.”

She wasn’t quite sure what followed could be described as a kiss, at least not in any traditional sense of the word. She felt it in her belly and scalp and her toes more than on her lips, and she held his whole body in the palm of her hand, and she didn’t think they touched skin-to-skin or skin-to-fur so much as flame-to-spirit. But when it was done, she was somehow very sure she _had_ been kissed, and that she’d more than held up her end of things in the meantime.

“There,” she said, a little lightheaded (no pun intended). She let the flames licking over her head and shoulders die down to a low smolder. “I think tradition is satisfied?” Coyote let out a sharp, pleased cry, and Antimony began to grin herself. “Or at least we’re off to a very good start.”


End file.
